Jessica Lea

Vision has given me the structure and knowledge to change my mindset and my lifestyle and as a result I have maintained the weight loss, achieved fitness goals I never thought I would and training is something I look forward to as part of my routine.

I started training like many people unhappy and lacking self confidence. Losing weight was a low priority in my life but felt like one of the few things I could control to make myself feel better. I hoped a personal trainer would give me the structure and accountability I couldn’t achieve on my own, and for the first 12 months-ish that's exactly what happened. I lost nearly 20kgs and reached my goal weight. Whist my self confidence had grown, I was back in unchartered waters - now what was my motivation going to be? Was I just going to gain it all back? Should I lose a few more kilos? Would I need to track my food forever? It kind of came as a surprise that weight loss is not a destination - there won’t be a time when you can tick managing your weight off the to do list... and go back to the lifestyle that got you there to start with.

I became more reliant than ever on the advice of my trainer who helped me navigate maintaining the weight and setting different health and fitness goals. As I learnt that you can tailor body composition and that there’s more than one way to be "fit” I felt the shift of integrating fitness as part of my lifestyle - swapping from strength training to movement goals to training for the positive effects on mental health. Some weeks are good and some are not so good - I’ve had challenges like most clients with long work weeks, a young child, arthritis-like pain and injury.

Consistency and trust have become the biggest thing to successfully achieving my goals. I trust the process (after testing it every possible way!) and adjust regularly to balance my available time, energy and what I am willing to sacrifice to achieve a new goal. Trust has also grown between me and my trainer. Every week we have (brutally) honest conversations about the goal and the challenges - not just the obvious ones but the uncomfortable ones - like the excuses we all give ourselves for avoiding something hard or scary. We have created a partnership that has given me the structure and knowledge to change my mindset and my lifestyle and as a result I have maintained the weight-loss, achieved fitness goals I never thought I would and training is something I look forward to as part of my routine.